The Chemical Brothers
How about some more Block Rockin' Beats?
Albums
8/10
Producer: The Chemical Brothers, Cheeky Paul
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Leave Home
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In Dust We Trust
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Song to the Siren
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Three Little Birdies Down Beats
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Fuck Up Beats
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Chemical Beats
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Chico’s Groove
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One Too Many Mornings
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Life is Sweet
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Playground for a Wedgeless Firm
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Alive Alone
Exit Planet Dust is the debut album by electronica act the Chemical Brothers and was released in 1995 on the label Junior Boys Own, one of the most prominent electronica labels of the 1990s. Now, when I tend to think of electronica music I immediately think of acts such as The Prodigy, what with their thousand and one levels of bass distortion and sweet beats, but it has to be said that The Chemical Brothers play an entirely different game. Of course, you have moments of distortion and sweet beats, but the tracks are more often than not fleshed out by what appears to be ‘live instruments’, with a heavy leaning towards rock and funk music. So, on many occasions you get the impression that you are in fact listening to a rock/funk band with a fondness for electronica, rather than an electronica band with a tendency to incorporate funk music into the proceedings.
Opening track, Leave Home, was the first single to be released from Exit Planet Dust. It starts with a short sample from Kraftwerk’s song Ohm Sweet Ohm, from the album Radio-Activity. This introduction then leads briskly into the low purring bass grumble and the repetitive vocal sample, “The brothers gonna work it out!” With a running time of over 5 minutes the song is given a good time to develop, and just as you’d expect, it introduces multiple layers of depth, but it isn’t exactly commercial single fodder. Therefore, Leave Home is a fine single, but it works better as an introductory track.
In Dust We Trust is one of my personal favourites from Exit Planet Dust. I think you’d have to pretty much outright hate The Chemical Brothers to not appreciate what happens during the track. For starters, the introduction is ambitious, with the yawning rumble of the bass once more laying to waste the competition, and it just goes from there really. Slowly but surely numerous layers of instrumentation are introduced, until you are left listening to a boldly complex rhythm, complete with vocal inserts and an electrifying tempo. Song to the Siren is one of the Brothers’ best loved tracks. It was actually their first single, back when they used to be called The Dust Brothers (they were forced to change their name because of another act with the same name). But while it may be one of their best loved tracks, I’m not really feeling it all that much. To be honest, it seems to be under-arranged and somewhat lacking in the delightful intricacies of the tracks which have just been and gone. A big thumbs down from me.
Thankfully, Three Little Birdies Down Beats redeems everything ten-fold, so I can forgive the slight misstep of Song to the Siren. Another highlight of the album, it leaps towards you with its ebullient love for living life to the full, with an electronic hook so good it sends shivers down my spine. Three Little Birdies Down Beats leads succinctly into F*ck up the Beats, which would have fitted comfortably on The Prodigy’s album Music for the Jilted Generation. With a running time of not even a minute and a half, it obviously isn’t going anywhere special, but it acts as a fine breather on the album and as an introduction to the album’s finest composition, Chemical Beats.
Chemical Beats starts with a futuristic, electronic riff wrapping itself around you and before long the aggressive, pounding drum beats are brought in, which continue throughout the song’s running time. Of course, there is more to it than that, but I barely have the words in me to describe how much I like this track. Sure, it lacks depth and is ever so slightly repetitive, but the quality of what is available here seems to right any wrongs. And now for a change of pace, found in the shape of the always welcome One Too Many Mornings. Almost ambient in its reassuringly delicate groove, One Too Many Mornings is the highlight of the second side of Exit Planet Dust. It proves that The Chemical Brothers can do the subtle and the subdued, as well as genre defining, brutal anthems. It is, in a word, exquisite.
If you ask me the big-beat closing track, Alive Alone, is a bit of a let-down. It is very trippy and is purposefully built to have something euphoric about it, but in my opinion it never manages to get going. It lacks a true melody and rather concentrates on atmosphere, but this simply does not work in its favour as the atmosphere is ultimately a bit of a disappointment. The wonderful Beth Orton provides vocals, so that is always nice to hear, and in a shocking and unexpected turn she sounds very much like Nico, from The Velvet Underground. So, while not a complete loss, I would have preferred something with a little more character to end Exit Planet Dust.
Exit Planet Dust isn’t quite an essential album, yet it still is an often brilliant record. It still stands up very well today because of the Brothers’ style when it comes to designing the tracks, whereas some other electronica records from this period now sound extremely dated.
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Producer: The Chemical Brothers
8.5/10
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Block Rockin’ Beats
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Dig Your Own Hole
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Elektrobank
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Piku
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Setting Sun
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It Doesn’t Matter
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Don’t Stop the Rock
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Get Up on It Like This
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Lost in the K-hole
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Where Do I Begin
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The Private Psychedelic Reel
Released in 1997, Dig Your Own Hole is the second studio album by The Chemical Brothers. It builds upon the already firm foundation which its predecessor, Exit Planet Dust, had left behind two years earlier. Exit Planet Dust had already shown that the Brothers favoured samples of genuine instruments over your typical electronic whirs and grinds, but here it is taken to an entirely new level. I noted in my Exit Planet Dust review that the Brothers had a fondness for funk and rock music, but what was once a mere interest and theme throughout their music has become the very basis and lifeblood of many of the tracks.
So, how about some more Block Rockin’ Beats? Because that opening track does sure as hell rock out! The carnage which the slap-bass sample (from 23 Skidoo’s Coup) leaves behind is monumental, simply ravenous in its desire to bring the house down. Of course, the sample has been modified, twisted and tweaked to perfection, and you just know that a great deal of time has been spent on getting it right, simply because the end result is so mesmerizing. Elektrobank is worth every second of its 8 minute running time. This is how epics are meant to be forged. It keeps on modifying and adding more to the soundscape until the final product is a highly innate recording of mass destruction. Something akin to watching a nuclear bomb detonate in your back yard, the throng of diverse sounds fired in your general direction is something to be in awe of.
The first half of this record is flawless and is truly one of the greatest side As in the history of electronica. As if more proof was needed, it is rounded off beautifully by Setting Sun. Gaining inspiration from The Beatles’ Tomorrow Never Knows, it is a tremendously consistent listen. From the first whine of the sitar, through to the introduction of the crashing drums, you know what to expect and not once does it deviate from its chosen musical path. You are safe to get all excited every time you hear the start of the track, because you know what’s just around the corner and the quality of what is about to come. Memorable and enthralling, it’s perfection. I’ll be the first to say that I’m not a huge fan of Oasis, but Noel Gallagher’s psychedelic vocal performance is perfect for this kind of bizarre recording.
The shortest track to be found on the record is Get Up on It like This. Short and sweet, it somehow manages to fit in perfectly amongst the two tracks which bookend it, Don’t Stop the Rock and Lost In the K-Hole. The funk bass is back during Lost In the K-Hole, only turned down a notch and not quite so violent, but most definitely making a worthy return.
I’m just going to put this out there and you can make of it what you will, but I find Where Do I Begin, featuring Beth Orton, quite flat and lifeless. I quite enjoy Beth Orton’s relaxed vocals, so I don’t feel that the problem lies there, but more in that the Brothers have ran out of fresh ideas by this point, a notion which isn’t aided by the bothersome rattle of the guitar loop.
Well, I say that the Brothers have run out of ideas by this point, something which isn’t entirely true, as the record is brought to a finish by the longest track of the set, The Private Psychedelic Reel. I think that no matter who you are this is going to be a case of either love it or hate it, so I can merely give my own personal opinion on what the song’s about and hope that you dig what I say. I’d pretty much sum up The Private Psychedelic Reel as a self-indulgent experiment (with a running time of 9 minutes 21 second), one which possesses a knowing arrogance over its drawn-out genius. It’s as if the Brothers were to look you in the eye and say, “Yeah, we’re the bomb, this is what we can do and we do it better than all of the rest. That’s how come we can afford to bring the album to a close in such a reassuringly hedonistic way, sucka’!” But I can hardly blame them, after all, what better way to gain respect from critics and to alienate casual fans at the same time than to construct such a convoluted and yet entirely satisfying piece of music to bring the album to an end.
This album has so many significant hooks throughout its running time that even a family of octopi would have difficulty counting all of them. Dig Your Own Hole manages to not only better The Chemical Brothers’ previous album, Exit Planet Dust, but it places them on a pedestal and shows every other electronica act how it is meant to be done.
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The Chemical Brothers
